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Near miss as Tomic gets a spot

Linda Pearce

PAT Rafter is in the US with his family this week; Bernard Tomic is in Sydney, where he has drawn countryman Marinko Matosevic in the first round of the Sydney International. Yet the fascinating part is what almost happened, could have, might have, then didn't, and the decision Rafter almost had to make.

Tomic, the Australian No. 2, is serving a one-tie Davis Cup suspension for what his captain deemed to be an intolerable lack of professionalism in the second half of last year. That means zero funding from Tennis Australia until he represents his country again, and slightly less definitively, a freeze on wildcard gifts as well.

Which is where it gets interesting.

Until Richard Gasquet's 11th-hour withdrawal from the Sydney event for ''person reasons'', Tomic's world ranking (52) did not guarantee him a spot in the main draw of a tournament it had been widely assumed he would contest. Tennis Australia still had one wildcard to distribute, while sweating on the inevitable late withdrawals and monitoring the ATP's ''special exempt'' rules affecting players contesting lead-in events in Doha and Chennai.

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At 4am, TA's head of professional tennis, Todd Woodbridge, was in his Brisbane hotel room still tracking events in India. The previous night, top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had withdrawn, but once Roberto Bautista-Agut and Aljaz Bedene both reached the Chennai semis to earn main draw exemptions at Homebush, there was still more movement required for Tomic to avoid the qualifying rounds, if TA (and specifically, Rafter), held firm.

By morning, Gasquet was out and Tomic in. Loud exhale. Problem averted.

''I've got no comment to make on how it would have played out, because we didn't want to get to that point,'' Woodbridge admitted. ''We were extremely confident that Bernard was going to get in anyway, but that didn't happen, and then there was a pull-out, so I don't want to go into what would have happened or how it would have happened, or what we would have done. We would have had to make a decision and we don't have to now.

''It wouldn't be my call. It would be Pat's call. There are quite a few things that would be taken into account, but I can't answer the things, you need to ask Pat about it. How it's worked out is fortunate for everybody; it's the best outcome for the tournament, for Bernard, for everybody, and an opportunity now for him to build on how he went in Perth. He's got a nice start to the summer, a bit of confidence and hopefully he can continue on.''

Thus, matter-of-factly, Tennis Australia announced via email at 8.43am on Saturday that Matt Ebden, James Duckworth and John Millman had received main draw wildcards into the Sydney tournament bereft of big men's names. Later, Tomic drew fellow Davis Cup bad boy Matosevic in an all-Australian first round. No mention of what might have been.

Or not been. For there seems little doubt Rafter would have stayed the course he has so determinedly set. Just over a week before the grand slam year begins, a stroke of luck for Tomic is a reprieve for a withdrawal-depleted Australian tournament, another one.